Arousal

Arousal refers to the global level of physiological and psychological activation of the nervous system. Yerkes and Dodson (1908) described the inverted-U relationship between arousal and performance: at low arousal, alertness and information processing are sluggish; at moderate arousal, performance peaks; at high arousal, performance degrades due to narrowed attentional focus, physiological interference, and impaired executive control. The optimal arousal level for a given task depends on task complexity: simple, well-practised tasks tolerate higher arousal, while complex, novel tasks are disrupted by it sooner. This distinction is directly relevant to competitive gaming, where the complexity of in-game decisions means that over-arousal during high-stakes moments can cause the same type of performance degradation as under-arousal during boring phases.

Reference: Yerkes & Dodson, 1908. The NeuroRank implementation holds the canonical form and scales interference via task-irrelevant stimulus density.

1. The performance lift felt in the early rounds of a match, when stimulation is sufficient to sharpen attention without producing the overloading anxiety that arrives in later high-stakes rounds.
2. The sharp degradation in aim precision and decision quality experienced in clutch rounds, when heart rate and arousal spike above the performance optimum.
3. The mid-session slump that appears in long MOBA games during extended farming phases, where low-drama gameplay reduces arousal below the level needed for reliable map awareness.

NeuroRank's Tilt module is the most direct proxy for high-arousal performance effects: simulated failure pressure that precedes the recovery phase deliberately elevates the psychological equivalent of game-critical arousal, and the Tilt Resistance score captures how much performance degrades under that state. The Composure module's distraction phase also reflects the player's capacity to maintain processing quality under elevated attentional demand.